Programming newbie coming from Ruby: a few Python questions

[Thomas Nelson]

I strongly recommend trying to come up with your own projects.  Just
pick small things that reflect something you actually want to do: maybe
make a simple board game, or a few scripts to help you keep all your
files organized, etc.  Generally speaking I think it's easier to teach
yourself a language if you have a project you care about finishing.  I
was pleasantly surprised by how easy python makes it to travel from "It
would be cool if I could..." to finished product.  In my own case, I'm
a college student, and I wanted a program that could help me schedule
my next semester's classes without conflicts and with the maximum sleep
possible.  That first "project" gave me a lot of good python
experience, and I know use python all the time for "real life"
applications.

THN